Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913, at Mondovi
in Algiers. His father, Lucien Camus, worked as a cellar-man in the wine industry
before he joined World War I, where he was killed in 1914. His mother was a Spanish
illiterate, who was deaf and sullen. After her husband’s death, she found herself
poverty stricken and struggled to raise her two young sons. As a result, Camus’
childhood was not a happy one. Once he started school, Camus spent as much time
away from home as possible, playing athletics, studying, and working part-time.
After graduating from high school, he entered the University of Algiers to study
philosophy. In 1930, while a student at the university, Camus contracted tuberculosis,
a disease from which he would suffer from time to time throughout his life.

Because of finances, Camus (like Mersault, the protagonist of The Stranger)
was forced to discontinue his studies and go to work. Between 1930 and 1935, he
held various jobs as a police clerk, a salesman, and a meteorologist. During this
period, he also married and divorced. In addition, he joined and then left the
Communist party. In 1935, he founded the Workers’ Theater, which performed plays
in Algiers for the working class. Then in 1936, he finally completed his degree,
graduating from the University of Algiers.

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Before the Workers’ Theater closed in 1939, Camus had begun to devote himself
to his literary career, writing book reviews and essays for periodicals. His first
book was a collection of essays entitled Betwixt and Between; the essays
deal with man’s isolation in the world and the finality and absurdity of death.
Camus also became an outspoken critic of the French governmental control of Algeria,
which made him unpopular with the French leadership. As a result, he had trouble
finding a job in Algiers and went to live in Paris in 1940. He went to work as
a journalist for the Paris-Soir, but his career was cut short by the outbreak
of World War II. As a result, he returned to live in North Africa, remarried,
and worked as a teacher in a private school. He also continued to write. In 1942,
he published The Stranger, his first novel. In the same year, he
also published "The Myth of Sisyphus," his most famous essay. He also
returned to France to commit himself to the Resistance Movement and edited a newspaper
called Combat.

In 1944 and 1945, his plays, Le Malentendu
(The Misunderstood) and Caligula were presented and considered significant
productions in the Theater of the Absurd. In 1945, he toured the United States
as a lecturer. Another novel, The Plague, was published in 1947
and became an immediate success with both the critics and the public. In 1949,
Camus toured South America. Upon his return, he became gravely ill and went into
isolation. After his recovery, he published a collection of essays entitled The
Rebel (1951). Another novel, The Fall, appeared in 1956.
In 1957, he published a collection of short stories, called The Exile
and the Kingdom.

In 1957, at the age of 44, Camus
received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Two years later, in January of 1960,
he was killed in an automobile accident. Despite his early death, he had made
significant contributions as a novelist, playwright, moralist, and political theorist.
Today he is remembered for his existential ideas and his concern over the alienation
of man in an indifferent world.

LITERARY INFORMATION

The Bubonic
Plague was important in literature as early as Greek mythology. The scourge of
Thebes is well known, and historical accounts of the disease were found in the
works of Thucydides and Lucretius. In the 18 th and
19 th centuries, several works on the plague
were published, including Papon’s Plague (1799), Clot- Bey’s The Plague
(1840), and Berbrugger’s Memoirs of the Plague in
Algeria (1847).

More modern works were directly responsible for Camus’ treatment
of the plague. Antomin Artaud’s 1938 essay The Theater and the
Plague influenced Camus to create the surrealistic depiction of the
plague as a depersonalized force of destruction. The chronicle style incorporating
Tarrou’s diaries was influenced by Daniel Defoe’s Journal of the
Plague Year

HISTORICAL INFORMATION

The events
described in the novel take place in the 1940’s during the Nazi Occupation of
France. However, the locale has been shifted to North Africa and the Resistance
movement is organized against the scourge in the form of a disease. Camus had
begun work on the book when he was actually living through the Occupation. The
despair at the endless monotonous scourge reflects the pessimism of the French
people when the atrocities of the Nazis were at its peak in 1943. Significantly,
Camus presents only the European aspect of Oran and the Arab presence is barely
felt in the novel.

An important aspect of the occupation was that the French
people were divided. Self-interest made many Frenchmen collaborate with the Nazi
authorities and support the Nazi puppet government at Vichy. Others were in the
underground Resistance movement. In the novel, Cottard is a symbol of the collaborator,
while Tarrou is in the resistance movement.